Assessment

Ah, yes, assessment. Well, between the two options, I think that formative assessment seems to be the most logical and attractive for the rookie teacher. A formative assessment is used during and throughout the course of study as an informal “diagnosis” or “monitor” of the instructional flow. Unlike summative assessment, there is little emphasis on scores or grades. It seems to me that formative assessment is mainly used to foster the teacher’s ability to strategize according to the differentiated needs of each classroom. It can assess learning in cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. It also requires seven different steps: Identify the teaching objective, write a single assessable question, select an informal feedback strategy, decide how to introduce the strategy, apply the strategy, analyze and interpret the feedback, and respond to the results. An example of this would be executing the “Half-Minute Note Card” strategy: giving students a 1/2 minute to...